Sabellicus became professor of eloquence at Udine in 1473, but was dismissed in 1482. After a short period at Verona, he went to Venice, with the Venetian history he had written speculatively. He was given a teaching position as deputy to Giorgio Valla.[3] In 1487 he was appointed as a curator of the Biblioteca Marciana.

Sabellicus while at Udine wrote an antiquarian work on Aquileia that appeared in 1482.[3] He then produced a Latin history of Venice, Historiae rerum venetarum ab urbe condita, with official encouragement; but it proved unpopular with the citizens.[4] He wrote further works concerned with Venice, and as a humanist scholar wrote commentaries on classical authors. The Enneades sive Rhapsodia historiarum appeared in 1498. His collected works were published in 1560 at Basel.[3]

The Historiae rerum venetarum had a first continuator, Andrea Navagero, who died having asked for his work to be destroyed. A second continuator, Pietro Bembo, was appointed in 1530, and he brought it up to 1513.[5]